Description
Title: Souljourner

One night, one journey, one chance to reunite beneath the stars...

Souljourner is a third person adventure game along the lines of "Journey", where you play as a young girl who longs to see her family once more. She learns of the Starfall, a single summer night during which the world of spirits touches the realm of the living, and journeys to the rumored site of the Gate...

Venture through the Gate and into the Starry Sea, soaring amongst stars and spirits as the girl seeks her lost family, in an ethereal, fleeting adventure of just one summer night.

Listen to the OST here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsaLgF43QWc

Track List:
1. Starfall - Opening Theme
2. The Starry Sea - World Theme
3. Shooting Star - Action Theme
4. One Summer Night - Ending Theme

[Track 1] Starfall

As night falls, the stars seemingly descend upon the sea...a towering, shadowed structure slowly rises, whispering, beckoning, calling to the girl... Suddenly, a rush of energy ripples outward, enveloping the Girl in what can only be described as a river of souls and starlight, a rushing current surging into the realm of the living...Gasping for breath, the Girl emerges from the torrent, startled but unscathed, and before her stands the Gate, now fully revealed in all of its majesty. An unknown world shimmers just beyond its threshold, a haunting melody emanating forth, beckoning to the Girl, calling to her, inviting her to enter the Starry Sea...

I used an assortment of bells in descending arpeggios to evoke the stars falling onto the ocean and forming the Gate. As the Gate opens, layers of voices and choirs emerge, to convey a sense of mystery, wonder, and majesty, calling upon the girl to venture into it. The piece is written in 5/4 time to instill a subtle sense of imbalance, reflecting reality's distortion as two worlds that should remain apart, connect, for one fleeting summer night.

[Track 2] The Starry Sea

The world beyond the Gate is like nothing the girl has seen before...an endless sea, shimmering with the souls of countless beings, expanding infinitely to the horizon. A song calls for her, beckoning her forward... is it guiding her, or perhaps luring her deeper...? With no path but forward, the girl steps forth into this strange realm, meeting various spirits along the way: some warm and kind, others mysterious and foreboding.

The lower bell arpeggios mirror the sea’s gentle currents and shifting movements, while the melodies remain open-ended and searching, reflecting the vastness of this world. Though beautiful and wondrous, the realm also carries a subtle sadness, as every spirit carries its own regret or lament. I tried to capture that duality through a lingering, melancholic atmosphere that exists throughout the piece.

[Track 3] Shooting Star

At last, the girl finds her family, yet their embrace must wait, for they warn her that if dawn breaks before she passes back through the Gate, the girl will be condemned to wander the Starry Sea forever as a lost soul...As she races back to the Gate, spirits she aided on her journey rise to help along with her family, helping her gain more and more momentum, until she is soaring across the Starry Sea like a shooting star, towards a horizon which always seems just beyond her grasp...As the first rays of dawn filter through the Gate, the girl reaches out, fingers outstretched, time slowing to a crawl as her fingers grasp for the world to which she truly belongs. She takes one final look behind her: the Starry Sea still shimmers with its haunting beauty, and the spirits she helped watches on silently...is that a faint smile she sees on their faces? And with that, she hurls herself through the Gate.

In this piece, I tried to capture both the urgency of passing time and the sensation of soaring through a shimmering sky filled with stars and spirits. In the latter half, I tried to play with the perception of time by introducing percussion to heighten momentum, then withdrawing it to create the illusion of time slowing down.

[Track 4] One Summer Night

As dawn begins to break, the girl stumbles out of the Gate with her family beside her. They share one final moment together, as her family promises to always watch over her and urges her to move forward to find her own happiness. As the Gate fades away, a new dawn rises.

The song is written as a duet between the girl’s voice and the spirits’ voice, the latter carrying an ethereal, wispy quality. I tried to capture the bittersweetness of reuniting with a loved one for just a single night before parting once more. Gradually, the music grows more hopeful and powerful, reflecting the girl’s realization that while her past is precious, her future is what she must embrace to truly find happiness. In the final chorus, the two voices join together until the spirit’s voice fades away, leaving the girl standing alone on the pier with new hope in her heart.

The lyrics are in Japanese, and the video version includes built-in translations for those interested in their meaning.

Thanks for listening! I hope you enjoyed the music.

Message from the artist
I used Cubase for this, with some sound design done in Reaper.

Main art by xin_cere.art

This jam heavily overlapped with some real-life commitments, so I had 2 and a half days to make the music, I tried my best to scrape together a complete sounding OST.

Theme

One Summer Night

Picture theme

How does it fit the theme?
The theme, "One Summer Night", reminded me of the Japanese Obon festival, where families welcome the spirits of their ancestors with offerings of food and remembrance each August for a few nights. My family and I would always travel back to Japan for this, and because our hometown was in a rather rural area, there wasn't really any big festival or dancing during this time. Instead, we would visit our relatives, talk about our family who have passed on, and at night, lanterns and miniature wooden ships would be sent down the river running by our family home in a quiet ceremony. I used my memories of these summer nights as inspiration for my story, then included various elements from the picture theme as well, such as the sea and the girl, to further build up my imaginary game. I combined these various aspects of the themes to create music that aimed to convey star-filled night skies, seas and currents, and an ethereal, spiritual atmosphere tinged with melancholy.

Link(s) of the submission on streaming services
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsaLgF43QWc

Number of tracks
4

Genre

Soundtrack use permission